HDS flaunts swollen NAS and search suite

Hitachi Data Systems today is slathering affection on its file-level storage gear, with an overhaul of all its NAS boxes, and the introduction of a new data search suite.

Usually punting block-level storage, HDS announced two new models of high-performance NAS units for corporate consumption, and three boxes catering to smaller types.

High class NAS

Hitachi's new big NAS boxes are the fruit of a 5-year product flogging partnership with BlueArc, inked in December of last year. The company is rebranding systems added today to BlueArc's Titan line as the Hitachi High-Performance NAS Platform 3000. Or HNAS 3K, if you're nasty.

The systems manage up to four petabytes as a single data pool, with each file system capable of up to 256TB. The two versions available are models 3100 and 3200. Behold:

HNAS 3100 has a maximum performance of about 100,000 IOPS, throughput of up to 10Gb/s, and max capacity of 2PB.

HNAS 3200 has a maximum performance of about 200,000 IOPs, throughput up to 20Gb/s, and max capacity of 4PB.

Hitachi told us the price starts below $300,000 — in a package that includes a high-performance NAS head, either CIFS or NFS, a system management unit, storage pools, File System Rollback, and cables. Price in mind, the boxes are aimed at corporations with high-performance file-level NAS systems like oil and gas, life sciences and entertainment folks.

Plebian NAS

For the less-than-gigantic data center, Hitachi is rolling out three new systems for its Essential NAS platform.

The boxes scale up to 512TB capacity in a two-node cluster. Each contains some data protection capabilities such as synchronous replication with Hitachi TrueCopy Remote Replication. There's also asynchronous replication with TrueCopy Extended Distance software. Let's meet the family:

Model 1100c has 8GB RAM and supports 5,000 CIFS concurrent sessions. The 1100c Filer bundles with Hitachi's AMS1000 array.

Model 1300c has 16GB RAM and supports 12,000 CIFS concurrent sessions. The filer bundles with the AMS500 and AMS1000 arrays.

Model 1500c has 32GB RAM and supports 24,000 CIFS concurrent sessions. The filer bundles with AMS200, AMS500, and AMS1000 arrays.

And search to unite them

HDS is swinging out a new file search service called Data Discovery Suite. The software offers content index and search across both NAS and content archive environments.

The discovery function comes via Norwegian business search engine company FAST, which was purchased by Microsoft for $1.23bn in January.

Data Discovery Suite also sports functions like self-service file restoration and reporting of file-based tiering. Hitachi says customers using the the suite can can conduct their own searches and recover data from their own authorized files. The software is integrated with Microsoft Active Directory and — if you're into this sort of thing — has a Windows Vista Gadget for user desktops. Yes!

Hitachi said the final pricing for the search suite is yet to be determined. The company expects to have some figures ready nearer to the product launch at the end of March 2008 — but offers that it will be priced competitively with rival software from EMC and NetApp. ®